Ramsgate Photos old and new

 I think this was Moses's Shipyard before it moved to the western undercliff, you can see into the railway turntable for the station bottom left I would think the photo dates from around 1860

 My mind is a bit focussed on the Royal Victoria Pavilion aka Wetherspoons (built in 1903 so not in the top picture) here in Ramsgate, not sure if the sandbags are to do with the war effort.

Note the ice cream man

I think this one must have been taken soon after the pavilion was opened in 1903

These next three pictures show damage to the harbour caused by running the sluices using the head of water in the inner basin to clear the silt out of the outer harbour

I think the photos were taken around 1900

I skived off work this afternoon, had a late lunch at the Pav, did a bit of painting

sitting in the shade of a bush

I have been encouraging the youf of today in the use of cameras, one of my favourite pocket cameras is the "Canon S3 IS" so I have more than one of these. This makes it easy to explain aspects providing I can remember how to use it. Still can't find the exposure compensation button - ah I see you have to do with Func which doesn't work in auto mode, stupid. Both my Nikon and Pentax have a button on the outside which works in every mode, what were Canon thinking of.

Anyway I took it out to play with today and here are the links to the pictures I took with it.

Link 1                      Link 2

Ramsgate and Margate Harbours Helicopters and Coal

 Back in the day Ramsgate Harbour had two different entrances to the inner basin from the outer harbour.

 much of the shipping was colliers as coal was the main fuel.

 Click on the pictures to expand them.

 Although after about 1700 Ramsgate was the main harbour before that I think it was mostly Margate

 Back in the day the main purpose of  inner basin at Ramsgate was to provide a head of water for the sluice gates that cleared the silt from the outer basin

 OK for hardy fishing boats but not so good for leisure boats - going down onto whatever was in the bottom of the harbour when the level went down to run the sluices.

 This is the steam train on Margate Harbour wall

 and here is a collier "Grace" actually (but how much do you want to know?" delivering coal to Margate

 another one here, not sure of its name

 "Aquitey" I think at Margate

 "Sincerity" at Margate

 Note all the barges in this one

 and this, not fishing smack but barges again

and as promised helicopter at Margate

Lunch painting at the Pav aka Wethersoons for me

Lots of books went out in the bookshop today, a fair bit of local history among them

this is the link to the pictures of them

Ramsgate and Margate old pictures and some pictures of the progress on Ramsgate Harbour lock gates

 Ramsgate Sands Station useful as dated 1913 just before WW1 note the tracks on the right going into the tunnel and the ones in the foreground going to the sidings where the car park is now

 top of Jacobs Ladder taken ‎23 ‎August ‎2017, ‏‎20:34:17 note the masonry at the top, being repaired now.

 Mitre gates in

 Leaking more than I expected

 I expect the fine tuning sledgehammer will be applied

 back to last year again

 Is this the Margate Tivoli

Last year again

sne of those days today at work, the credit card machine went wrong, Monday morning technology, we managed to fix it by lunchtime, so apologies to the bookshop customers who had to go off and find a cash machine.

Most of the problem here relates to a mixture of customer security and keeping the prices down, back in the day paper credit card vouchers impressed using the raised digits on the plastic card, mixed with trust and the logistics, meant these things were much less of an issue.

When the first credit cards were introduced I think I was working part time for a bookseller called S.P.C.K. or this may be anecdotal from working for them at a later date. Anyway S.P.C.K. were the main booksellers to The Church of England - supplying candles, communion wine, hymn books and even vestments.

This meant that most churches bought things from them on credit and I don't think some of them had ever actually paid their bill since 1698 when S.P.C.K. was founded. Part of the deal setting up Barclay Card was the all these churches accounts were transferred to Barclay Card accounts.

The vicars who then had to pay off these old accounts or face the punitive rates of interest were some of the most demanding customers for the shop assistant.

Sorry I digress, eventually we got it sorted (both our card reader today and the angry vicars of the 1960s) think learnt a lot of things we didn't really want to know.

Work wise we have been working on the part of the bookshops website that shows pictures of the books on the shelves this is the link to it  this is partly so I know what we haven't got when I am out buying, as far as I know we are the only bookshop in the world that does this and also puts up photos of the books we put out on the shelves this is the link to that   

Ramsgate Canterbury comparisons, painting - photos - old Margate shops

In Canterbury today, which is much hotter than Ramsgate, so sitting under the air con in Chocolate cafe painting more of the view, writing the text of the blog, (so some now is then). I would say it’s probably the hottest day of the year so far.

My Canterbury Watercolour painting in progress from downstairs there is a bit of a spot the difference, part done from the table just outside the window and part from the table just inside, so a few parallax issues. 

I am using gold coloured watercolour for painting on the sign of Creams Cafe I have mixed feelings about this one as if the areas of gold were larger, then it would be the gold coloured reflection and not the gold colour I would try to paint.

In terms of comparison now, well there isn't much to choose between painting out and about in Canterbury or Ramsgate. the architectural view is in the same league, mediaeval, renascence, wosisname, eighteenth century buildings in Canterbury against eighteenth century Georgian Victorian and Regency in Ramsgate. The cathedral and harbour the main additions.

The bottom line here is cafe facilities with the view and other aspects like shade, temperature, atmosphere play an important part for me.

I'm in Waterstones at the moment, my intention being to browse the art books. The problem is that about half the books I want to look at are shrink wrapped, I can only infer that the message here is that I might as well but then online, where I would at least be likely to get some idea of what's inside them - a few sample pages, who knows?

Another non-food Canterbury shop gone, a very worrying trend as very little good and non-food replaces them.

I am still building up to buying another bridge camera

Optical viewfinder, better zoom than my Nikon P90 are essentials.

Writing to internal storage, producing image files small enough to put on the internet, fitting in my pocket, well it’s a tricky one.

Digital cameras can be a bit glitchy and in some ways I would rather spend more and buy it from a shop, in case it goes wrong, but we come back to the shop staff and the management understanding digital cameras.

Jessops in Canterbury were a bit like Waterstones with the shrink-wrapped books, what I wanted to do was to put my own memory card in to a variety of cameras, point them all at something a long way away and look at the results, comparing with my existing camera – the idea being to buy the best camera for the job. This proved to be impossible, in most cases the security lump was stuck to the camera in a way that meant you couldn't get a memory card in. Laughable really I think the idea is that you spend anything up to £1500 on a specialist long distance zoom camera without being able to point the camera at anything a long way away.

I am minded of going to the butchers to buy a tender and tasty steak, only to find not only are all the butchers in the shop vegetarians, but the management are mostly vegans.  

The job being producing photos that are difficult to produce with the camera in smartphone, not many camera photos today here is the link 

Bookshop wise here is the link to the books that went out yesterday 

Historic picture wise it's Margate shops today